Emulating an environment of a target database system

Abstract

A test system receives environment information of a target database system, where the environment information includes information relating to hardware and software components of the target database system, and one or more of: definitions of workloads in the target database system, and settings of a scheduler in the target database system. The test system emulates an environment of the target database system using the received environment information, and database software is executed in the emulated environment in the test system.

What is claimed is: 
     
       1. A method comprising:
 receiving, in a test system having one or more processors, environment information of a target database system, wherein the environment information includes information relating to hardware and software components of the target database system, definitions of workloads in the target database system, and settings of a scheduler in the target database system; 
 emulating, in the test system, an environment of the target database system using the received environment information; 
 executing database software in the emulated environment in the test system; 
 using the definitions of the workloads of the target system to perform workload management in the emulated environment in the test system; and 
 using the settings of the scheduler of the target system to perform scheduling of tasks of database management software in the emulated environment in the test system. 
 
     
     
       2. The method of  claim 1 , wherein executing the database software in the emulated environment comprises performing query plan selection for a query in the emulated environment. 
     
     
       3. The method of  claim 2 , wherein performing the query plan selection comprises performing the query plan selection by an optimizer executing in the emulated environment. 
     
     
       4. The method of  claim 1 , wherein receiving the environment information comprises receiving the environment information that further includes random sample statistics of the target database system. 
     
     
       5. The method of  claim 1 , wherein receiving the environment information comprises receiving the environment information that further includes exception information that specifies actions to take in response to exceptions. 
     
     
       6. The method of  claim 1 , wherein the settings of the scheduler include scheduling weights assigned to scheduling allocation groups, wherein the scheduling weights indicate relative allocations to be provided to the allocation groups by the scheduler. 
     
     
       7. The method of  claim 6 , wherein the workloads correspond to plural workload management groups, wherein a mapping is provided between workload management groups and the scheduling allocation groups. 
     
     
       8. The method of  claim 1 , wherein receiving the environment information comprises receiving the environment information in response to one or more SQL (Structured Query Language) diagnostic statements. 
     
     
       9. The method of  claim 8 , further comprising:
 receiving, by the test system, the one or more SQL diagnostic statement that has options selectively set to indicate importation of one or more of the definitions of workloads and the scheduler settings into the test system. 
 
     
     
       10. The method of  claim 9 , wherein the options of the received one or more SQL diagnostic statements are further selectively set to indicate importation of the information relating to hardware and software components, and importation of random sample statistics. 
     
     
       11. The method of  claim 1 , wherein the settings of the scheduler include settings of a priority scheduler that interacts with an operating system of the test system to manage relative priorities of tasks of database management software. 
     
     
       12. A test system comprising:
 a network interface to receive environment information of a target database system, wherein the environment information includes information relating to hardware and software components of the target database system, and one or more of: definitions of workloads in the target database system, and settings of a scheduler in the target database system; 
 one or more processors to emulate, in the test system, an environment of the target database system using the received environment information; and 
 database software executable on the one or more processors in the environment. 
 
     
     
       13. The test system of  claim 12 , wherein the environment information further includes exception information associated with corresponding workloads, wherein the exception information specifies actions to take in response to exceptions.